Riding the Yellow Trolley Car ANNOTATION
A dazzling collection of essays, profiles, and interviews from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed and Very Old Bones. Spanning 40 years of writing this selection of non-fiction is "graced with an emotionally satisfying arrangement and a deep appreciation for life's variety."--The Washington Post. Photos.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Imagine yourself in a large, gaily festoooned trolley car, yellow on the outside, bulging on the inside with people you figured you would never get to know in your lifetime - people like Louis Armstrong, Robert Penn Warren, Frank Sinatra, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jiggs and Maggie, Diane Sawyer, Paul McCartney, Saul Bellow, Samuel Beckett. Well, here you are, with Mr. Kennedy as your concerned host, taking you down the aisle of the trolley car and introducing you, one at a time, to those figures he has met or wirtten about over the past forty years: a master of fiction showing you how non-fiction can become a high art form, indeed. With the author of Ironweed and Very Old Bones, and his other fable Albany sagas, you are in very good hands. This rich collection contains Kennedy's insightful book reviews over the last thirty years on such authors as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Bernard Malamud, John O'Hara, Mario Vargas Llosa, Carolos Fuentes; literary essays on other authors and on his own writing; profiles of jazz musicians, movie stars, stories on the filming of Ironweed and The Cotton Club; and a moving soliloquy on the homeless that resonates with much force and timeliness today. Here also is Kenndy's illuminating unpublished interview with Robert Penn Warren, and his extended interview in Barcelona with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who also provided Kennedy with two original drawings that appear in this volume (along with some choice Kennedy family photos). This sumptuous gathering of William Kennedy's work reflects his credo about nonfiction: "I love it extremely well, I have worked in it all my writing life, and have enormous respect for its pitfalls and exotic reaches." You will preceive Kennedy's love of it all when you climb aboard the yellow trolley car.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
This engaging miscellany of some 80 articles, interviews and reviews should delight fans of noted novelist Kennedy ( Ironweed ). From newspaper pieces printed in his hometown of Albany, N.Y., in the 1950s to more polished essays in national magazines, these selections suggest how Kennedy's literary voraciousness contributed to the growth of his distinctive, sinuous style. He interviews and reviews writers Malamud, Bellow and Doctorow, celebrates Irish forebears Joyce and Beckett, and pronounces himself still ``tickled silly'' by Damon Runyon. Once a resident of Puerto Rico, Kennedy developed a subspeciality in Latin American fiction; his observations about Garcia Marquez and Fuentes hint at a source of his fabulist style. Sections on pop culture and on Albany contain some dross, but there are lively pieces on Louis Armstrong and the pleasures of screenwriting, and touching reminiscences of the author's working-class grandfathers. For Kennedy, good-natured humility accompanies literary purpose, and this ``oblique autobiography'' is a good warm-up for a full memoir. (May)
Library Journal
Reading this book is a little like reading the Sunday papers. Between the covers is an amalgam of news stories; human interest pieces; music, dance, and travel items; personal essays; an obituary; and even a bit about the comics. The 86 pieces collected here are broken into six sections that date from 1954 through 1992. They include early news columns, interviews, book reviews, book introductions, and life experiences. Much of the text concerns writing, and Kennedy examines his own masterful creations as well as the great works that touched him. He speaks admiringly of Doctorow, Mailer, Bellow, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and reverently of Joyce, Beckett, Hemingway, and Damon Runyon. Other pieces cover movies, sports, and, of course, Albany. Whether he's discussing his taste for oysters or the plight of the homeless, there's a touch of the poet about Kennedy, making his writing a great pleasure to read no matter what the subject. Another winner from Kennedy; highly recommended.-- Michael Rogers, ``Library Journal''
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